Echoes of a Distant Summer (71 page)

The cabin door slid open and Carlos came in carrying two mugs of hot soup. A cold breeze, bringing the taste of the salt sea, entered with him. Carlos shouldered the door shut. “How much farther out do you want to go?”

Jackson took a mug of soup, set it down, and said sardonically, “Whenever I have to dump a body, I like to do it far enough out so that they don’t float back in before I dock.”

“They won’t float for long,” Carlos said with a laugh. “I’ve got them weighted down with old truck batteries.”

“Carlos, you’ve been like a combination uncle and older brother to me since the first year we met. There’s never been a time when I didn’t like who you were. But the way you accept killing as part of life is disturbing. I don’t want to get used to it. And it was unnerving to see you torturing that man. Hell, it made me think of death squads.”

Carlos walked over to the seat next to the captain’s chair and sat
down. He noisily slurped his soup and said nothing. Jackson gave him a long, serious look then gestured with his hand, asking for a response.

“We needed his information,” Carlos said tiredly. “He would not have given it without persuasion. I had to persuade him.”

“I guess euphemisms are important when you torture and kill people,” Jackson said.

Carlos gave Jackson an understanding smile. “I used to feel as you do. I let men who wanted to kill me get to their feet. Time has since taught me the stupidity of such decisions. That man’s pain saved us time and perhaps our lives. We now have the name of a third man that wasn’t on your list. Life will be simpler now with this information and these men will be consumed in the coldness of the sea.”

“Is it really that simple?” Jackson asked.

“Yes!” Carlos said with an emphatic nod of his head. “I’ve always lived on the edge of civilization, where life is cheap and death is good if it comes without torture. I didn’t create that world, I just lived in it.”

The cruiser slewed to one side briefly before Jackson got it back on course. “We’re going through the Gate,” Jackson explained. “The current always gets a little crazy here.” He looked at Carlos’s features, tinted green by the panel lights. “If you know the world you live in is that bad, yet you have alternatives, why continue to live in it? There are ten thousand worlds.”

“I guess really only one reason.” Carlos slurped his soup. “Almost everybody that I cared for lived in that world. It was El Indio and El Negro’s world. Now it’s ours.”

“No, it’s not. I don’t want to live my life taking other people’s lives. I’ve lost the only woman I’ve ever truly loved because of this crap. I’m prepared to fight because I have to, but I don’t want this. I don’t want to have to check for enemies when I walk out of my house, or carry a gun ten years from now.”

“Then hire bodyguards,” Carlos answered. “There can be no return to your past existence. You can’t turn back the clock. This is your life.”

“Elizabeth said the same thing when I saw her this evening.”

“She sounds like a wise woman.”

“Wise enough to tell me that she never wanted to see me again.” Jackson picked up his mug and drank his soup.

“That tanker is gaining fast,” Carlos observed, watching the radar screen. “She’ll be on us within five minutes.”

“We’ll be out of the way by then,” Jackson answered. “I couldn’t go through the Gate at top speed; the current is too unpredictable. We’ll clear the shoals and then we’ll veer off to the right.”

The waters outside the Gate moved in larger swells and the cruiser rose and dropped accordingly. Along the San Francisco coast, lights twinkled and in the clear, cloudless sky the stars gleamed balefully. The wind had picked up; Jackson could hear the intermittent gusts whistling past. In the darkness ahead he saw a final beacon, dancing on the movement of the sea. It was two minutes away. He would clear the beacon well before the tanker overtook him.

“You know what I think your problem is?” Carlos mused.

“I’m sure that you’re going to tell me,” Jackson answered.

“I think that you’re afraid of yourself.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Jackson asked, exasperated. “That could be the answer for damn near everything.”

“It
is
the answer for damn near everything,” Carlos asserted.

“Then it’s meaningless!”

“Only if you choose it to be so,” Carlos answered. “Why don’t you let me make my point and then you can make your decision as to whether it’s meaningless or not.”

Jackson nodded his head. “Okay.”

“I think that you realize that you have the capacity and willingness to kill.”

“Under the right circumstances, so does everyone,” Jackson countered.

“Ah, but yours is close to the surface. You have a lot of El Negro in you and it comes out when you least expect it.”

“Explain,” Jackson demanded.

“The man that you beat in the parking garage; you intended to kill him—”

“Whoa! That was self-defense and anger. I didn’t go looking for trouble. He and his buddy started it. I fought back, that’s all.”

“When you dropped your weight on him, I knew that the spirit of El Negro was not dead.”

“I only meant to disable him,” Jackson said defensively.

“You weigh, what—two hundred and thirty pounds? You dropped on him twice on the chest. You must have meant to kill him. You cracked his ribs and probably drove them into his lungs.”

“He was still alive when we put him in the trunk,” Jackson protested.

“Don’t waste time rationalizing; he’s dead now. What I want to get through to you is that ambivalence leads to hesitation. You must be committed to maximize your reflexes. You will need to have quick reactions. Don’t fight yourself!”

A blast from a foghorn warned them that the tanker was close. It could be seen three hundred yards to their stern, a towering, dark shape with numerous running lights, churning out of the Gate. The last beacon was just off to the starboard. Jackson turned the boat slightly to the right, angling away from the path of the tanker.

“We should drop them here,” Carlos suggested. “Maybe they’ll get sucked into the propellers of the tanker.”

Jackson shivered. It seemed so heartless and cold, but on the other hand, if he was committed to killing, what difference did it make? “If we drop them here, you’ll have to do it by yourself, Carlos. We’re still too close to that tanker to stop; the wake alone will wash over us.”

“No problem,” Carlos said. He got up and left the cabin, leaving Jackson with his thoughts.

The sound of wind swooshed through the cabin door and then stopped abruptly as the door was slid closed. Off the starboard beam, Jackson could see whitecaps as the waves rushed over the shoals. It was definitely rougher outside the Gate. The boat now pitched up and down with each succeeding swell. Jackson wanted to make sure that he had sufficient distance from the tanker and had the boat facing in the direction of its wake. He didn’t want water washing over the low stern of his motor cruiser. As he turned the cruiser, it fell into the trough of a wave with a loud smack and a burst of spray. He throttled back slowly until the boat rode the waves without drifting toward the shoals. He braced the wheel and went out to drop the sea anchor, then he turned to help Carlos.

Jackson and Carlos labored in darkness as the spray of waves washed over them. Jesse’s body went over the side first. The two large batteries attached to his legs caused him to disappear with little more than a splash. Fletcher was more difficult since he was conscious and he struggled. Carlos and Jackson wrestled his body up the gangway. The pitching motion and the wet deck of the boat hindered their efforts. Jackson grabbed Fletcher’s legs, which had been tied together with rope tied to the coarse webbing that held the heavy truck batteries. Even in the darkness Jackson could see the panic on his face. Tape had been placed across his mouth to prevent him from screaming, but it did not prevent
him from grunting and groaning as he fought to break free from Jackson and Carlos.

The tanker gave another warning blast as it headed out into the open sea. From the stern of the cruiser, it looked like a five-story building passing in the night. The bow of the huge ship cut through the water with hardly a roll. The wake caused by the passage of the tanker caused the cruiser to pitch and roll with even greater height and frequency.

Carlos lost his footing and fell heavily as a swell hit the side of the cruiser, spraying icy salt water over the three of them. When he regained his feet, Jackson shouted, “We’ve got to throw him over the side now. I can’t be sure how far we’ve drifted.” The cold, moisture-laden wind whipped the sound of his voice away. Carlos nodded and lifted the bundled batteries with a grunt and tossed them overboard. Almost immediately the rope that was connected to Fletcher’s legs grew taut. The boat fell into a trough and another wave smacked against the side, dousing them anew with cold spray. Jackson grabbed Fletcher under the arms while Carlos got a grip on his legs. They lifted Fletcher’s body together and waited for the cruiser to ride the swells and pitch in the right direction. Even though the man’s hands were tied and lashed against his waist, he clutched at Jackson’s coat sleeve and begged. His words were garbled and indistinct due to the tape, but Jackson understood him. The man was pleading for his life. Yet he felt nothing. This was one of the men who had killed Wesley.

They waited for the next swell to pass and when the cruiser rose, lifted by the swell, they tossed the writhing man overboard. His head bobbed momentarily on the surface and then disappeared under the water’s darkness.

J
ackson sat back in the comfortable executive chair and stared across the table at Delbert Witherspoon and his attorney. Delbert had taken his black felt fedora off the table and was now kneading it in his hands. His nervous eyes blinked rapidly and every few moments there was a
twitch in his shoulders. There was a scared look on his narrow face, yet it was hard for Jackson to imagine him with any other kind of expression. The blatancy of the man’s fear made Jackson feel uncomfortable, but Delbert was the first cog in the line that he had to strip until he brought his enemies’ criminal machinery to a screeching halt. Jackson had discovered there was currently about four and a half million in drug profits being laundered through T&W Construction. He had the money impounded and had filed an injunction against further transfers. He had also started proceedings to freeze the target accounts as well.

Jackson opened the thick file in front of him and took out a copy of a contract. He took a deep breath and asked, “Do you know why you’re here, Mr. Witherspoon?”

Witherspoon looked at his attorney before answering. When his attorney gave him the go-ahead nod, he answered, “Uh, I received some sort of writ and, uh, lots of legal notices about, uh, injunctions you’ve filed.”

“Do you know why I filed them, Mr. Witherspoon?”

Delbert’s attorney, Barney Phillips, retorted tiredly, “Do you expect him to read your mind?” After he finished speaking, Phillips pulled the cuffs of his shirt out of his suit jacket and checked his nails. He was a stocky black man who had his head shaved and wore a beard precisely trimmed in the Van Dyke style. He did not appear to be greatly interested in what Jackson had to say.

Jackson slid the contract across the table. “Have you ever seen this? This is the founding legal document outlining the contractual arrangements under which T and W would operate.” Phillips snatched up the contract and began to read it.

Jackson gave Witherspoon a smile and continued. “This contract spells out the ownership and the means by which the revenues of T and W Construction will be distributed.”

Delbert blanched. “That—that was signed with King Tremain. He’s dead. That contract can’t still be legal. When he was declared a wanted felon, all his property that they could find was confiscated.”

Phillips jumped in. “Clearly, a wanted felon would not be able to keep property gained as a consequence of criminal activity and certainly that would be one prong of our attack should this ever get to court.”

Jackson chuckled. “It’s too bad you’re not more familiar with your
client’s case, Mr. Phillips. You see, King Tremain sold his investment in T and W to Rockland United in 1951, three years before he was declared a wanted felon.” Jackson pulled another contract from the folder and slid it across the table. “Your father also signed this transfer of ownership in front of a notary public. This is a legal document.”

Jackson watched Witherspoon fidget in his seat while Phillips hastily reviewed the new document. Jackson thought that if he could separate Witherspoon from his attorney, there might be a greater chance of success in getting him to understand that Jackson was not after him. “Mr. Witherspoon, I requested this meeting so that we could talk informally and without attorneys because I thought that we might be able to work out an arrangement that might serve us both well.”

Phillips scoffed, “You called this meeting in a law office. My client has no desire to meet with you without legal representation.”

“Although I have contracted the services of Johnson, Wyland and Johnson, I’m in this room by myself. I convened this meeting in their general conference room because they are a prestigious law firm and I wanted Mr. Witherspoon to know that everything that I will do will be legal and aboveboard. I didn’t want him to be afraid.”

Phillips stood up huffily. “How dare you! My client isn’t afraid! Unless you’ve got something else, this meeting is over! We’ll see you in court!”

“Before you go, let me give you a statement of my commitment. I am prepared to spend ten million dollars in legal fees to win this case and in the process I’ll prevent T and W from moving one piece of equipment. This company won’t work for at least two years. I’ll freeze the bank accounts. I’ll have auditors poring over the records. According to your IRS filings, T and W made twenty million last year, but your individual taxes were only a hundred and fifty thousand. Where did all that money go? It’s not showing on the company’s books.”

Phillips nudged his client. “Let’s go, Mr. Witherspoon.”